Spies Like Us: “Slow Horses”

Slow Horses (2022, Apple TV, Exec. Producer Will Smith):

Let us be clear about this much at least: Slough House is not in Slough, nor is it a house. Its front door lurks in a dusty recess between commercial premises in the Borough of Finsbury, a stone’s throw from Barbican Station. To its left is a former newsagent’s, now a newsagent’s/grocer’s/off-licence, with DVD rental a blooming sideline; to its right, the New Empire Chinese restaurant, whose windows are constantly obscured by a thick red curtain. A typewritten menu propped against the glass has yellowed with age but is never replaced; is merely amended with marker pen. If diversification has been the key to the newsagent’s survival, retrenchment has been the long-term strategy of the New Empire, with dishes regularly struck from its menu like numbers off a bingo card. It is one of Jackson Lamb’s core beliefs that eventually all the New Empire will offer will be egg-fried rice and sweet-and-sour pork. All served behind thick red curtains, as if paucity of choice were a national secret.

Mick Herron, Slow Horses

The phrase “spy thriller” usually means one of two things. On the one hand: James Bond, Jason Bourne, high-tech thrills, extravagant chases, slam-bam action overshadowing the minutiae of spywork. On the other: Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, John le Carré, the existential angst of double-crosses and moral dilemmas, wits privileged over brawn. (No surprise that cinema and TV have tended to favor the former over the latter.) But whichever flavor of spy you prefer, it’s getting mighty hard to find good tales about spooks these days. Bourne and Bond are in hibernation, while Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible franchise has become less about espionage (quick, can you remember the villain’s plot from M:I Fallout?) and more about its star’s penchant for crazy stunts. Most spy flicks now resemble Netflix’s The Gray Man: monotonous violence, mirthless snark. Meanwhile, TV opts for camp (The Blacklist) or attempts at brainy thrillers that can only offer up major plot holes and cookie-cutter characters (Treason).

Maybe we should blame the end of the Cold War; the lives of undercover agents and counteragents haven’t held the same sway since the Wall came tumbling down. (The most notable spy series of recent vintage, The Americans, takes place during the Reagan years, back when the threat of nuclear armageddon seemed almost sexy.) In our current era of social media politicking and moral absolutes, of what use are spies in the shadows, anyway? Even John le Carré, perhaps the greatest spy novelist of them all, never regained his mojo after the Cold War, the occasional near-classic like The Constant Gardener notwithstanding.

Still, do a little digging and you’ll find worthwhile diamonds in the rough like Homeland (its first season, anyway) and the French series The Bureau, which casts a jaundiced eye on France’s involvement with its former territories while hitting on appropriately Gallic notes of fatalism. Happily, those looking for a spy fix can now find it with Apple+’s Slow Horses, based on Mick Herron’s “Slough House” books. Like le Carré, Herron is intrigued by the cat-and-mouse games of intelligence operatives, but while le Carré found pathos in his flawed characters and the ways their private lives and professional obligations intersected, Herron mines the same subject matter for black comedy.

Instead of heroes, Slow Horses spotlights losers: disgraced and discarded MI-5 agents who have been demoted to Slough House, a backwater office in a backwater borough of London, where the daily tasks include sorting through trash and mounds of paperwork. At the head of this class of rejects is Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a once-brilliant agent who’s now a soused, rumpled, cynical shell of a man more apt to fart than utter a kind word about anything or anyone. (Mick Jagger’s bluesy lurch of a title song for the series fits Lamb to a tee: both singer and character are rock stars far past their prime and basking in it.) Lamb’s mirror opposite at Slough House is River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), a young buck who wants to be MI-5’s answer to James Bond but whose bumbling attempts at being a man of action usually result in humiliating snafus. Even worse, he’s a silver spooner who only retains his job because he has a famous granddad (Jonathan Pryce) who used to be the head of MI-5.

Jackson Lamb: Look, I don’t normally do these kind of speeches, but this feels like a big moment, and if it all turns to shit, I might not see any of you again. You’re fucking useless. The lot of you. Working with you has been the lowest point in a disappointing career.

Herron’s books have a laconic charm to them, and the Slow Horses TV series retains it while turning up the volume on scathing dialogue; you would expect nothing less from executive producer and writer Will Smith, the man behind Veep and The Thick of It. Smith is attuned to the cruelty that comes with power, as every conversation turns into a volleyball match of putdowns, with the loser getting buried under vulgar invective. Sometimes not even a word is needed, as when Lamb preempts an argument with his office manager, the motherly, disapproving Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves), by thrusting a shot of whiskey at her, fully aware she’s a recovering alcoholic. Most of the pleasures of Herron’s novels come from how he colors in his characters’ backgrounds and personalities, and Smith and the cast do yeoman’s work presenting them in shorthand on screen. Lowden’s Cartwright makes for an appealing hangdog hero, and Christopher Chung is a particular delight as Roddy Ho, a tech genius whose abilities come in second only to his narcissism.

In keeping with this disappointing ragtag crew, Herron’s plots aren’t about saving the world, or even preserving the health and safety of Britain. He may use the lingua franca of the intelligence game—”dogs” are the internal affairs muscle men, much like “scalphunters” from le Carré’s time, and “London Rules” (a.k.a., “cover your ass”) reign supreme—but the cute code words and tricks of the trade ring hollow when there’s no big bad wolves to play with. The first season of Slow Horses hinges on a manufactured threat intended to make MI-5 look good (naturally, this backfires spectacularly), and the second season careens towards what looks to be an apocalyptic attack in central London, only for the conspiracy to reveal itself as something much more modest, grubby and human. Modest, grubby and human is right up Slough House’s alley; they may be underfunded and undervalued, and just plain suck at a lot of things (including London Rules), but in a world of reduced expectations, their sloppy pursuit of justice and truth is endearing. Besides, who wants to be with the Establishment when the Establishment is populated by drones and power-hungry strivers? The slovenly, dyspeptic Lamb looks like a saint compared to Kristin Scott-Thomas as a respected MI-5 bigwig who thinks nothing of framing Slough House for her blunders when it suits her.

Katinksy: I wanted the professional humiliation of you and your team.

Lamb: Well, that was a waste of effort. My team have already professionally humiliated themselves. That’s why they’re my team.

In keeping with these messy characters, Slow Horses’ storytelling is similarly shaggy and disheveled. While Herron’s plotting by and large hangs together, it lacks the puzzlebox precision of le Carré’s best work, and audiences desiring derring-do will have to make do with a few fitful bursts of action. But if the series’ sardonic tone and “taking the piss out” approach to its subject matter suggest that none of this should be taken that seriously, this is still a spy show at heart, which means that no one is safe from harm or even an undeserved death. The misfits of Slough House aren’t immune to love, loss, or even a sense of duty, and Slow Horses takes the time to acknowledge their hidden depths even as it invites us to laugh at their frequent cock-ups.

And who better to suggest hidden depths than Gary Oldman? At first, his portrayal of Lamb as the boss from hell verges on caricature (one can imagine an Office-like workplace comedy based solely on the goings-on inside Slough House), but as the series progresses, the unctuous façade cracks to reveal flashes of regret, cunning, a dedication to getting the job done right, and even semi-affection for his crew (“They’re a bunch of fucking losers, but they’re my losers”). While Oldman’s recent roles have been more like stunts than acting jobs—an Alec Guinness impersonation in the movie adaptation of le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, emoting from underneath mounds of makeup and a fat suit as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour—Slow Horses gives him leeway to be both showy and subtle, and he savors Smith’s lacerating dialogue as if it’s the finest filet mignon. The show may be a self-deprecating commentary on the ridiculousness of the spy game, but when Oldman is at his best (which is also the show’s best), he proves that old dogs (and horses) can still unleash new tricks. ■